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New tech stuff protects, organizes, amuses

In years past, the Demo conference that concluded Wednesday in Phoenix has launched the PalmPilot, Salesforce.com and TiVo. So what's the biggest, um, scoop among the 68 companies invited to make presentations at this latest showcase for new technologies? Try ice cream.

The MooBella Ice Cream System lets you order the kind of ice cream you want on a touch-screen, and 45 seconds later, you get your scoop.

An upstart called MooBella demonstrated the first 45-second ice cream vending machine. (The ice cream chips are made of chocolate, not silicon.)

Also on display: AOL showed its video search engine Truveo. LocaModa displayed a product called Wiffiti that essentially lets users send wireless graffiti from mobile phones to large flat-panel screens in bars or elsewhere. And GarageBand.com launched a free service for iTunes to help music lovers create automatic playlists based on artists who sound similar. Here's a look at other attention-getters at the show.

• A mobile training coach.

Bones in Motion may be a creepy name. But the company's downloadable BiM Active software can turn your GPS-capable cellphone into a personal trainer for runners, cyclists and trekkers. The phone can record time, place, distance, calories burned and location of your route. You can track progress via maps, and speed and elevation charts. Information is also uploaded to the Web where it can be shared with other fitness enthusiasts. The service has just launched on Sprint, with five compatible phones. Cost: $10 a month. (www.bonesinmotion.com)

• Protecting your identity.

"Keystroke-logging" — in which online passwords are snatched by cybercriminals — is one of the nastiest computer attacks you can face. Computer security firm StrikeForce Technologies unveiled WebSecure 1.0, a $30 program aimed at consumers that arrives in the second quarter. The software encrypts keystrokes as you type, then securely reroutes those keystrokes to the Web browser while bypassing vulnerable communications areas. (www.mywebsecure.com)

Meanwhile, GuardID Systems takes a different approach at securing your information. It sells a $49 hacker-proof token called ID Vault that you plug into your computer's USB port. It stores your passwords to various financial institutions. You must still type in a PIN to use it. (www.guardidsystems.com)

• Phoning in pictures.

Photo credit

Vizrea Snap lets you wirelessly send photos to a website.

Lots of folks have camera phones. But most people never do anything with the pictures they shoot. Vizrea introduced a mobile phone application called Vizrea Snap that lets you automatically transmit photos wirelessly (via the phone network or Bluetooth) and organize them on a website. Available as a free beta, it works with certain Panasonic and Nokia phones, including a Nokia I used to dispatch a couple of images from the Demo floor. (www.vizrea.com)

Tiny Pictures is also all about getting pictures off a camera phone. The company expects people using its Radar software to take pictures on the fly as a "stream of consciousness" and to share them with friends invited to a custom "channel." The beta software is free, though future subscription models are being contemplated. (www.tinypictures.com)

Meanwhile, Sharpcast is about keeping photos (and ultimately other applications) in sync, whether they reside on multiple computers, cellphones or PDAs. The company is trying to provide a BlackBerry-like experience with consumer media. So if you snap a picture on a mobile phone, it will be dispatched to your desktop computer and the Web. If you rotate an image on a phone or computer, it will similarly be instantly rotated on every other platform it resides on. Major benefit: With all your images online, you have an automatic backup. Sharpcast will open up its free beta in the spring; there will eventually be tiered pricing. (www.sharpcast.com)

• Populist publishing.

For a while now, Apple and others have let you create slick hard- and soft-cover photo books on your computer, then order the finished work online. But what if you want to share poems you have written? Or recipes? Using online templates, Blurb.com lets you produce a professional-looking hardcover poetry collection, cookbook or other book on a PC or Mac, right down to the dust jacket. You download Blurb's BookSmart software, then drag and drop in pictures, stories, blog entries, e-mails or other content into predesigned (but customizable) layouts. Creating a book is free; you pay when you publish. Prices start at $30 for a single (up to 40 pages) book. What's more, Blurb is establishing an online marketplace where authors can sell their books to the public. The pricing structure is not yet set. (www.blurb.com)

• Robot dinosaur.

Remember Furby, the late-'90s toy sensation that responded to care and feeding? Furby's inventor, Caleb Chung, now with start-up Ugobe, has sired a new creature called Pleo. Even at $200, I'm betting this clever autonomous robotic dinosaur will be a hit among the tech-toy crowd when he launches in the fall. Pleo has nearly 40 sensors that help him adapt to his surroundings and human touch. The robot sighs, twitches, sneezes and continues to evolve based on how you interact with him. As for genetic ancestor Furby, Hasbro recently revived him for a comeback. (www.ugobe.com)

CEO Gibu Thomas shows how the Sharpcast Photos application keeps photos in sync among different devices.

• Tiny projector.

Digislide Holdings in Australia demonstrated a Digismart handheld projector roughly the size of a stick of gum. By year's end, Digislide hopes to incorporate the miniature projectors inside cellphones, portable music players, laptops, handheld game machines and other handheld devices, or create a projector to be used as an add-on accessory. From about 3 feet away, the device can project an 11-by-17-inch image on a wall. (www.digislide.com.au)

• Virtual jamming.

You probably don't think of an electric guitar as a computer peripheral. But that's just what iGuitar has created with iGuitar.USB. Billed as a guitar for the MySpace generation, the instrument plugs directly into a PC or Mac. You can then record in a music studio application such as Apple's GarageBand. Using software, the guitar can emulate other virtual instruments. When it's not connected to a computer, you can use iGuitar like any electric guitar. It's available in June for $799. (www.iguitar.com)

• Facing your images.

I've stored thousands of digital pictures on my hard drive. Yet despite my best intentions, I haven't added captions or "tagged" the images to help me quickly find specific photos later. A promising start-up, Riya, uses "face-recognition" technology to automatically help you tag and search photo libraries. Riya examines faces, text, even names on badges inside photos and also incorporates the date and time pictures were taken. You do have to "train" it, after which Riya will scan your photos to find other faces similar to those you have told it about. Riya isn't flawless. The company says it recognizes faces with the proficiency of a 2-year-old child. But if it lives up to its promise, Riya will drastically simplify the process of tagging your entire collection. A free beta program commences in a couple of weeks. (www.riya.com)

• Fresh idea.

Why have Ben or Jerry serve you a frozen treat when you can serve yourself? That's the sweet pitch behind the MooBella Ice Cream System. Using a touch-screen LCD, you select your ice cream type (premium or low-carb), choose from a dozen flavors, then select one of three mix-ins (walnuts, cookies 'n' cream and chocolate chip). The result is 96 possible variations. You then place a cup on a holder and wait less than a minute for your single 4.5-ounce scoop. MooBella is in trials at Brandeis University and Children's Hospital in Boston. The company aims to make money by selling the packaged ingredients to the cafeterias and other outlets taking the machine. The cost to them is about 90 cents for each scoop; consumers are expected to pay $2 to $2.50. My sample scoop of low-carb vanilla with cookies 'n' cream was tasty. Though you can order coffee, strawberry and other common flavors, chocolate is notably absent. MooBella says it is a tricky flavor to produce and is still under development. (www.moobella.com)